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Communal Irrigation, State, and Capital in the Chiang Mai Valley (Northern Thailand): Twentieth-Century Transformations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2011

Paul T. Cohen  and
Ross E. Pearson
Paul T. Cohen
Affiliation:
Macquarie University
Ross E. Pearson
Affiliation:
Macquarie University
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Abstract

Transformations this century in communal irrigation in the Chiang Mai Valley, northern Thailand, are examined under the impact of political and economic changes such as state centralization, the intensification of capitalist agriculture, and urbanization. An anthropological political economy perspective is applied in placing anthropological subjects (irrigation weir communities and their leaders) at the intersection of local, national and global processes which allows scope for the agency of these subjects within the structural constraints imposed by political economy changes.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 1998 , pp. 86 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1998

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63 This paper deals with developments/economic changes up until 1996 and does not attempt to examine the economic repercussions of the recent currency crisis in Thailand.

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78 Ibid., pp. 1-2. These 1996 projections reflect a marked increase in longan in dried form which has been prompted by a very large harvest and facilitated by the granting of subsidized loans for the purchase of longan drying ovens. Low-interest loans of 50,000 baht repayable of five years have been financed by the Department of Trade and Commerce and administered through agricultural cooperatives and local farmers associations.

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